Artists and the war

The air strikes on Afghanistan and subsequent developments have led to a substantial increase in our postbag, and there is not room to include all these letters in the print Guardian. Here are some of the other letters we thought it important to publish

While totally agreeing with Jeanette Winterson's arguments relating to the obscenity of the bombing (In a world that makes no sense, artists, writers and actors have a right to speak out against war, G2, October 16), I must defend the implied blanket characterisation of Cheltenham Festival of Literature audiences. Later the same day, a much larger capacity festival audience than that which "audibly shuddered" at Ruth Rendell's refusal to dismiss the New York attacks as "pure evil" gave John Pilger an ovation for his dispassionate analysis of the much greater crimes that provoked those attacks. And a lot of us were over 50!
Gordon Parsons Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Gordon.Parsons@tesco.net

Thank you, Jeanette Winterson for stating so clearly and with such feeling my own emotions and convictions. It is sad, and enraging, that many of us well over 50 share your pain still. Forty years ago I was sitting in Trafalgar Square alongside many of the finest artists of every kind, led by Bertrand Russell, to protest the same kind of brutal stupidity. What you have said needs saying again and again. Don't give up, ever. Edward Argent Glasgow

I really cannot believe the crass stupidity of Jeanette Winterson's assertion that there is no cynicism in Bin Laden. What could be more cynical than persuading young men to hijack fuel-laden planes, murder passengers, pilots and stewards, then use the planes as bombs (regardless of the fate of the innocent passengers, including children) to destroy buildings and kill themselves, their possibly unwitting comrades, and thousands of innocent people, all to gain publicity for a political cause?

The trouble with Winterson and the artists, writers and actors she purports to speak for is that they are too precious by far about their own views and public profile, at the expense of the lives of all who are at risk from terrorist attack, and those who will inevitably suffer in the battle against terrorism. Her little tale of noblesse oblige towards her taxi driver shows where she is really coming from. J Hanson Wallington, Surrey